All views and opinions are personal opinions of the Hosk

Resco

FieldOne is a service management solution built into the core CRM product, a key part of the FieldOne solution is the mobile app. FieldOne Sky mobile app takes the CRM functionality out of the office to where the field agents are working, keeping the office and the field agent in sync.

Built on Resco CRM Mobile App

The current mobile application is built using Resco mobile CRM app, this functionality is included when you buy an Enterprise license (things are always changing). The mobile app is a key part of FieldOne, Resco didn’t want to give free access to the excellent Resco CRM mobile app.

To include FieldOne Sky mobile app, you are not allowed any non FieldOne functionality.

When I openedthe mobile application I got an error saying

Customization contains an entity that is not allowed

The reason for this error is you had to pay for mobile access but now it is free with the caveat of no non FieldOne data or functionality available in the mobile app.

To get you FieldOne mobile application working you have to remove all sales entities from the woodford mobile solution, which can take a bit of trial and error to work out what to remove. This great blog post by Neil Parkhurst lists all the entities not allowed

How to test Mobile functionality

When I wanted to test the FieldOne mobile application I instinctively chose the Windows emulator.

The reason for is I haven’t got use to using Windows 8 and downloading apps on my laptop computer, in my mind apps live on phones and tablets.

Microsoft uses apps on Windows computers will be the same as on phones and tablets, which should encourage developers to create them. The reality is if I’m on my laptop I don’t want to run an app, I want to run either the full program or browser based app and use the benefits of my laptop.

Apps run best on touch screen devices and offer a cut down version of an application on a laptop, it doesn’t make a great experience. One of the reasonsthere arenot many apps, the main reason is the target market of Windows devices is smaller than Apple and Android.

To test the FieldOne mobile application don’t use the emulator I believe it‘s not going to be updated and possibly removed and it might not be the same as the other mobile applications.

I have tested the mobile app on my personal android device, it works, I tested it on my Windows 8 laptop, full screen is annoying but it works well.

The future for FieldOne Mobile

FieldOne is integrated with the core Microsoft Dynamics CRM so it makes sense FieldOne will be developed in the default Microsoft Mobile application.

It will take time to match the functionality offered in the Resco FieldOne application but with time and will you can do achieve great things.

My first experience of Resco CRM mobile is it’s a great application and made mobile development is easier than I had imagined.

CRM with internet of things

When I have looked at the CRM mobile application before the functionality was limited and I didn’t see many convincing business cases for mobile applications working with CRM.

I believe mobile applications will become more common and along with Azure apps and Azure Service bus there will be increased integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The FieldOne service mobile sky application will give many people an introduction to the effective mobile applications working with CRM and give people something interesting to think about.

The out of the box CRM mobile application has improved functionality and offline capabilities, the tools are there and ready to go, don’t be surprised if you find yourself working on a CRM mobile application in the near future.